


The Longest Road (Not a Victory March)

by only_more_love



Series: Endgame Responses [1]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Canonical Character Death, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Not A Fix-It, POV Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-07 04:21:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18613033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/only_more_love/pseuds/only_more_love
Summary: Steve watches Tony die.





	The Longest Road (Not a Victory March)

**Author's Note:**

> Hugs for anyone who needs them after watching Endgame.

 

 

 

 

  
Adrenaline from the battle still sends blood throbbing hot and fast through Steve's body. He watches Rhodes touch Tony's hair with his metal hand; curve it carefully around his head. He watches the boy—Peter, all long limbs and innocence, still, despite having seen war—clutch Tony and plead with salt-clogged words. He watches Pepper lay her hand over the arc reactor; watches Tony raise a trembling hand to cover hers.

Realization renders Steve a statue: only a handful of feet away from him, the man he loves is dying. _No. No._ Crushed between adrenaline, epiphany, and denial, he thinks he might vomit. The muscles in his stomach and throat actually convulse. Somehow, he forces back the gorge.

They touch Tony so casually, with such ease—something Steve never managed because he didn’t think he had the right—it makes him burn with envy and pain. Every touch between him and Tony has been freighted with meaning―with words unspoken. Steve has always found it easier to fight, even when the odds are dismal, than to open his mouth and assign words to the feelings that swirl inside him with such dizzying force.

Ash crowds his lungs; bile floods his throat; ice cracks his chest. _Oh, God,_ he thinks, _I’m falling out of the sky again_.

He watches. The arc reactor’s light dims and Pepper’s head bows as she curls over Tony, as is her right as his wife. _I have no rights_ , Steve thinks. Someone eventually helps Pepper stand, and Tony is left alone on the ground.

Tony shouldn’t be alone. Steve’s own words return to him then: _I promise you, if you need us, if you need me, I'll be there._ Before anyone else can touch Tony, he moves. Kneeling, helmet off, he presses his bare cheek to Tony’s, to the one not ruined by radiation burns. His skin, it's still warm. _I tried, Tony. I tried to keep my promise to you, and it wasn’t enough. I failed. But you— I’msorryI’msorryI’msorry._

Steve wants to vomit; he wants to throw his head back and scream until there's no breath left in his lungs. So many lost souls returned, yet it’s Tony’s that burned itself out for the world. How much pain Tony must have been in during his last moments. And yet he bore it. If Tony could do that, Steve can do this. There is nothing more he can do for Tony now. It’s these thoughts that Steve clings to, desperately, in order to stay quiet.

The urge to kiss Tony, to feel his lips now, just once, in death, as he never dared to in life, rises in Steve. _Coward._

_I don’t have the right,_ he thinks.

Instead, the words he could never bring himself to say before, he breathes into Tony’s deaf ear: “I love you.” _Too late. Too late._ When he pulls back, Tony’s eyes are open, but they’re dull and still, not bright with intelligence and humor, and not moving, always moving, as they were in life. _No. No._ Seeing them like this is agony. With fingers that tremble like leaves in a storm, he closes Tony’s eyes.

Though Tony is beyond pain, Steve strives to be as gentle as possible as he slides his arms under Tony’s legs and shoulders and stands. Steve cradles Tony close, a groom he never was with a bride he never had. A threshold only one of them will cross now.

Tears and who knows what else wet Steve’s face and he doesn’t care; it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters but the precious burden so light, so still in his arms.

Rhodey steps toward him, arms outstretched as if he wants to take Tony from him. Steve shakes his head.

“Please,” Steve says, “please.” _Let me do this._ His voice is a ruin, cracked and ancient. Unrecognizable.

Rhodey grips his shoulder and nods, once.

Bucky finds him then, and Steve feels the brief, warm press of his forehead against his. After, Sam’s palm alights on Steve’s back. Under the cacophony of _Tony is gone. He’s gone. He’s gone,_ gratitude for the people he still has unfurls tiny petals inside Steve.  
  
_Wake up, Tony, please. I'll do anything, give up anything. Please. Wakeupwakeupwakeup._

Steve's chest aches with the wanting of it, the anguish no less keen for being shared by so many others on the pitted and scarred battlefield that holds the twisted remnants of what used to be Steve's home—the home Tony built.

> _(A lifetime ago:  
>    
>  "You all right?"_
> 
> _"I'm home.")_

Flanked by Bucky and Sam, Steve begins to walk.

**Author's Note:**

> Tony Stark is a fucking hero. And he died like one. And I get it but I hate it because he’s GONE. I’m in so much pain. 😭
> 
> Comments and kudos are appreciated. I respond to all comments, though sometimes it takes me a while.
> 
> Other places you can find me: [Pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/onlymorelove), [Tumblr](https://onlymorelove.tumblr.com), [Dreamwidth](https://only-more-love.dreamwidth.org/), and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/onlymorelove). I'm on Discord as onlymorelove#8488; you can often find me posting garbage on various Marvel Discord servers.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] The Longest Road (Not a Victory March)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21862774) by [only_more_podfucs (only_more_love)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/only_more_love/pseuds/only_more_podfucs)




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